Femslash is derived from 'female slash', and refers to a genre of fan fiction featuring female characters involved in a romantic or sexual relationship. In English, it is the most common media fandom term for homosexual relationships between female characters.[1]

Terminology

Alt

Alt or Altfic, short for 'alternative fiction', originated in the 1990s in the the Xenaverse where it is the preferred term for Xena/Gabrielle fiction. The term (and the fandom) developed independently of slash fandom and its history. When some XWP bards started writing Janeway/Seven, Willow/Tara and other f/f fiction, the term followed these authors to Star Trek: Voyager and BtVS fandom where it coexisted with other terminology such as femslash and femmeslash. In 2000 one of the oldest multifandom f/f sites, The Pink Rabbit Consortium, moved its archive to altfic.com. For a variety of reasons alt didn't catch on and femslash became the dominant term for f/f fiction.

F/F Slash

F/F Slash is used by some fans to indicate the continuity between f/f and m/m slash and probably is the oldest of the media fannish terms for this type of fiction. It was the dominant term for female/female fanfic in the slash lands of media fandom before femslash and femmeslash appeared in common usage in the late 1990s. (see Ladyslash)

Femmeslash

Femmeslash is an alternate spelling that some people prefer for its visual appeal. Others dislike it because it brings up Butch/Femme connotations; they perceive the term as reinforcing those stereotypes.

Genderswap

Genderswap is sometimes considered in discussions of femslash, where an M/M pairing is written with both characters as women. They can become women in a variety of ways. Sometimes cis women who were always women, became women by supernatural means, or are trans women. This genre has been used to explore issues of sexism, gender issues in general, and sometimes just for fun. Some fans would prefer to exclude such fic from femslash filters or exchanges.

Girlslash

Girlslash is used by some fans, as in the name of the Harry Potter community hp girlslash. Usually it is accompanied by the m/m equivalent boyslash in an attempt to denormalize the assumption that all slash is m/m. Sometimes fans will request 'womanslash' as a specific contrast to 'girlslash', especially in fandoms in which the majority of the female characters are teenagers or young girls, as in the Harry Potter fandom.

Ladyslash

Ladyslash was used for a while in the late 90s. The dominant term for female/female fanfic in TV based fandoms was f/f slash in media fandom and alt or altfic in the Xenaverse. ScullySlash was the term used in X-Files fandom and the stories were usually either Scully/OFC or Scully/f crossovers that paired Scully with female characters from other shows, like for example Scully/Miss Parker in Hth's Pretender crossover Thank You For Not Smoking.[2] There were other character specific terms (the rare Highlander f/f story was usually AmandaSlash) but these depended on the fandom. The term femslash probably existed[3] but was first mentioned on the Ladyslash mailing list half a year after it was created on April 4, 1999, and the first mention of femmeslash was more than a year after creation. Whether intentional or not, "ladyslash" wasn't so much a new term as it was an umbrella for all those FemaleCharacterNameSlash f/f stories in all those different fandoms. Despite a Lady Slash WebRing that was created in 1999, a Lady Slash Site, and a LadySlash zine, the word "ladyslash" didn't impact the f/f slash terminology. The mailing list simply offered femslash fans a place where they could connect, share their f/f fanfiction, and discuss the f/f subtext of their favorite shows.

Sapphic Fiction

Some fans use words or phrases associated with the mainstream lesbian community. For instance, the Harry Potter fansite Sapphic HP, like the term "saffic," references the association of the Greek poet Sappho with contemporary lesbian relationships and culture.

Saffic, a portmanteauish pun on sapphic fiction, is used by a few fans. According to the userinfo of the LiveJournal community Saffic, saffic includes:

Femmeslash (or yuri and shoujo-ai) and erotica[...], as [well as] gen stories that focus on other strong female bonds such as friendship, sister, rival and mother-daughter relationships.[4]

History

The history of femslash most likely dates to early Star Trek fandom around 1970, with two of the first known femslash fics being published at this time. Kismet, a Chapel/Uhura fic by Dani Morin was published the zine Obsc'zine.[5]And Then..., a story set on a Klingon ship featuring original characters, by C.M was published sometime between 1975 and 1977 in the zine Obsczine. While both zines, Obsc'zine and Obsczine, had nearly identical names they were not connected in any way.

While femslash communities remained small in the 70s and 80s, the 90s brought the premiered of Xena: Warrior Princess, and with it new wave of femslash related content. It was the first popular SFF show that featured two female leads that regularly interacted with one another. An active altfic community quickly developed around the show, particularly after the lead characters shared a (confusing) kiss in Season 2. In the Season 2 episode "The Xena Scrolls" alternate universe versions of the principle characters appeared. This led to a whole subgenre of Xena fanfiction known as uber. It was one of the first incidents of a fandom embracing the AU and is especially notable as many of these AUs/uber fics were later converted into original works that were then published as lesbian romance novels.

As more well defined female characters were introduced across fandoms and more queer relationships, such as Willow/Tara, began to became canon, the femslash fandom continued to slowly grow.

Vocal Fandoms, Possible Queerbaiting

In more recent years the rise of new vocal fandoms within femslash has also brought discussion of possible queer baiting as showrunners and soical media reps have become more aware fan activity. Emma Swan and Regina Mills in Once Upon a Time are one such pairing that have a prolific and enthusiastic femslash following who have a somewhat tense relationship with the show's production team.

The pairing of Myka Bering/H.G. Wells in Warehouse 13 gained popularity following Jaime Murray's first appearance as Helena in 2010. The pairing gained traction as Helena's further appearances often paired her with Myka, and the friendship they shared became important to both of them. Promos put out by Syfy and tweets from the production team also acknowledged the attraction, making fans hopeful for a canon romance. However in the series finale, Myka began a relationship with her colleague and friend Pete Lattimer in that episode, Bering and Wells fans were disappointed, as were fans who had previously enjoyed the show because of the brother-sister chemistry between Pete and Myka and the refreshing lack of forced romantic tension between them as male/female leads.

Canon Lesbian and Bisexual Women

This decade has seen an increase in canonical WLW (Women Loving Women) couples in a variety of media.

In 2010 Brittany Pierce and Santana Lopez mention their relationship through a throw-away joke in the mid-season finale of season one of Glee. However Brittana becomes the first femslash couple ever willed into canon by the activism of fans after their relationship was explored further in season 2. It would go on to create what the Glee fandom called The Brittana Effect, where a dynamic was introduced that permitted fans to communicate with the showrunners and provide feedback; and be listened.

In 2011 on Grey's Anatomy, Arizona Robbins and Callie Torres got married in the Season 7 episode "White Wedding." It was the first serious lesbian wedding on mainstream television that occurs between two regular cast members of a show.

Come 2014, the series finale of The Legend of Korra confirmed as canon the romantic relationship between Avatar Korra and businesswoman and engineer Asami Sato, as they walked away hand in hand in the final shot of the episode.

Clexa

Fans of the popular Clexa pairing were distressed in early 2016 when Lexa was killed off - the latest in a long line of lesbian and bisexual women characters to die in mainstream TV. Fan outrage at yet another canon femslash couple torn apart in what seemed an unnecessary and brutal turn of events led to increased awareness of the prevalence of the trope, and as part of their protest fans raised money for LGBT charities.

The Femslash Herd

The general femslash community is small enough that much of it tends to move in a herd, migrating from fandom to fandom as it seeks the promise of sweet sweet canon lady kisses.[6]

That said, many large and small fandoms that are less femslash-focused overall have established f/f communities of their own, which often overlap with the communities for the popular femslash fandoms of the moment.

Controversy

Some fans object to the way the term "femslash" seems to suggest that m/m slash is the norm and slash involving women is the exception.

"Yes I am perfectly aware that it is common to separate femslash from “common” slash. But you know what? I absolutely loathe this.

I haven’t until recently been able to articulate why it got my hackles up so much but it quite frankly always has and recently it dawned on me why. It’s because making this kind of separation make it seem that slash is normal while femslash is some weird subset of slash, like Mpreg or A/B/O that only a minority is interested in. By making the distinction in this way it posits that a sexual and/or romantic relationship between two (or more) women is abnormal and something not everyone is interested in while two guys screwing is perfectly normal and something that all “real women” have an interest in.

Furthermore I find the statements that het is the only female centered type of fic to be repulsive. It in one swoop it erases all women who has no interest in putting men at the centre of their lives, be it because they’re lesbians; bi or pan with a preference for women (or just people who aren’t men), aromantic, or something entirely fifth.

And so I’m back to the root of my original rant, that fandom considers slash about women some weird (and slightly squicky) subcategory of slash, that only a small subset of fans with weird preferences can be interested in. Is that really what fandom wants to tell women of all ages?"[7]

Other fans feel that since femslash is still common usage, we may need to continue to use the phrase while also challenging the usage:

In some cases, I have attempted to differentiate between m/m slash and f/f slash via the terms ‘dudeslash’ and ‘femslash’ because sometimes the distinction is valuable, in part because fannish spaces that are dominated by one type of slash can exhibit different mores than those dominated by other type(s) - and sometimes they don’t, naturally, but where they do, it’s sometimes valuable to distinguish using the term ‘femslash.’ Or the term ‘dudeslash,’ which I don’t really expect to catch on, but what I’m saying is, I’m not wholly unaware of the issue and I do try to make efforts to mitigate it.
HOWEVER. It’s also useful to acknowledge that the common vernacular is not theideal vernacular, both in this case and in others. When people - especially a certain subset of academics/acafen, some of whom are not actually very hip to the lingo, as it were - talk about ‘slash,’ they do usually refer to m/m pairings, and f/f ones are curiosities and afterthoughts at best, or belong to a ‘weird (and slightly squicky) subcategory of slash,’ as you put it. Which is bullshit, and I agree that it’s bullshit and I absolutely do think that it should be challenged."[8]

Dead Lesbian Trope

In April 2016 the website io9 ran a post that summed up both the development of femslash fandom and its new visibility in the wake of a series of character deaths across several TV shows since the beginning of the year. The canonical appearance of numerous lesbian pairings had helped to develop popular fandoms. The enthusiasm of these femslash fandoms led to enormous attention focused on shows both old (The Vampire Diaries) and new (The 100, Empire) as these ships lost one or both partners.

"The furor has not let up since. Media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair and Variety have all commented on The 100 hullabaloo, with Mo Ryan of Variety being particularly outspoken. The hashtag #LGBTFansDeserveBetter even continues to trend sporadically on Twitter and fans have even succeeded in getting sponsors to drop the show."[9]

In June 2016, NPR's All Things Considered interviewed a writer at Vox about a study they did on the prevalence of lesbian deaths in U.S. television during the 2015-2016 season.

"About 10 percent of the deaths that I counted were gay, bisexual or otherwise queer women, which, when you think about it proportionally, is kind of nuts because not many television shows, unless it's "Orange Is The New Black" or something, have more than one or two maybe gay, bisexual or otherwise women. And the fact that most of them - a lot of them end up dead is troubling."
[10]

Two different tallies were made by Autostraddle, one of which looked not only at how many lesbian characters lived or died, but what the outcome of their stories were.

"We need hope in stories. We need light in stories. And we need stories to work their magic in the lives of the people who would oppress and persecute us because we’re gay. Stories are fatal to bigotry." [11]

The outcry from fandom about lesbian deaths was included in widespread coverage about the "entitlement" of fans when it came to the way stories were being told, as well as to how entertainment projects were developed.

"As the barriers between fans and creators get knocked down with hashtags and Tumblr questions, some creators are straight-up terrified by the new wave of interactive fandom that wants so much more from them than, say, a written fan letter might once have asked." [12]

Prevalence

How Common Is It?

Statistically speaking, femslash is generally uncommon. In 2016, Destination: Toast! did an analysis of Archive of Our Own's femslash relationship tag and found that 9% of fanworks were tagged as F/F. This was an increase from the previous years and indicated that, while still small relative to other relationship tags, both the number of femslash fanworks created and the percentage of the archive that they took up were on the rise.[13]

Why?

Some fans have wondered why f/f slash is less common than m/m slash for twenty years or more; others think it is no great mystery and focusing on the question enforces a hierarchy where f/f is seen as less. Theories about the perceived lack of femslash include:

There aren't a lot of shows with two interesting female characters, demonstrated by results on the Bechdel Test, and they were even rarer in the '80s and '90s.

Where there are two female characters, they don't often have a relationship, especially a buddy or enemy dynamic which is regarded as shippable.

Straight women aren't as turned on by the mechanics of f/f, so there is a smaller audience.

F/f is more common than m/m slashers think, but as there is not much overlap between the m/m and f/f communities, the only parts of f/f fandom that m/m fandom sees are those where the female pairings are minor compared to the main m/m pairing. M/m slashers rarely participate in fandoms that are primarily f/f.

Femslash is usually written by and for queer female authors, which means there are different identity politics involved; f/f slashers are more likely to already have a like-minded community outside the fannish context (and therefore less likely to seek out m/m-dominated slash fandom?)

Writing femslash can force female writers to deal with gendered issues that hit close to home, whereas slash can be a form of escape from them.[14]

Less pre-existing audience, fewer examples, and fewer resources mean writers have less community and are more likely to be discouraged by more critical feedback or less feedback overall.[14]

Conventions, Fests and Events

Femslash communities have a variety of events and gatherings to celebrate their interest. Femslash February, an annual month-long celebration of femslash, launched in 2013 and generates large quantities of fic and other fanworks in a variety of fandoms each year. The International Day of Femslash, which began in 2008, is a similar celebration which, since 2012, has also included virtual conventions where femslash fans can gather online for panels and chats.

TGIF/F - a Gal Pals Convention took place in Los Angeles in February 2016, and featured a wide variety of femslash-focused programming, including discussion panels, film screenings, games and other entertainment.

There are also a number of femslash-focused fanwork exchanges and fests. The Femslash Exchange is a multifandom exchange which has run since 2013, taking over from the Femslash Multifandom Ficathon, which ran from 2004-2012. Many fandoms have their own individual femslash exchanges. For example, the Femme Fuh-Q Fest was a popular Star Trek femslash fest which ran from 2000-2009.

Notable Femslash Personalities

Melissa Good is a very well known Xena/Gabrielle writer who was eventually hired by the show as a writer. She went on to write three episodes of the show, two produced and one, a romantic queer musical, that is unproduced.

Ralst has maintained the largest exclusively femslash archive for more than ten years. The site, Passion & Perfection is particularly notable as it includes many femslash works not found on more mainstream archives like Ao3.